NOTES for Mar 2:27-28

Law and rules are only the starting point for any creative work. Let us liken them to scales. Every student must play scales day after day for many years in order to learn to perform Bach. The objections of the Pharisees then become obviously absurd, as absurd as objecting to a brilliant performance of Bach. Yes, unlike the Lord, we are still students. Therefore, we must play scales. But even a first-year student already tries to play simple études, understanding that scales are not an end in themselves; their performance serves a higher purpose. So it should be with all our rituals. This is what the words really mean: the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. For one often encounters a different, permissive understanding of these words, leading to a “philosophical” attitude toward fasts and prescribed prayers. We must be very sure that we play our scales well before allowing ourselves this.

Why not on the Sabbath? How are we to understand this? Rest for God. Rest for the sake of prayer is understandable. But then there is this vulnerability and fragility of a glass rose that lies there and lies there and lies there... and what if a car suddenly passes over it and crushes it into shards? Everything seems to pass: the snowfall, the wind, and the moon; the pictures of the sky change. But the fragility of this rose is something special and precious. It seems to us that since this rose has endured so much, wind, snowfall, and blizzard, nothing will happen to it during the Sabbath. But it is fragile; it is made of glass. So it is with every human soul. It seems to us that Jesus our Lord treats every soul in this way, like a fragile glass rose which, once He has touched it, must be warmed and placed somewhere safe so that no car will crush it, and that place is His hands. As soon as He has touched it... what does it matter if it is the Sabbath? And prayer is breath.

In the Pharisees' disputes with Christ about the Sabbath, the fundamental difference lies in what is considered important. The Pharisaic position, at first glance, is simple: it is written, "Do not do any of your work on the Sabbath," so we will not do it. Come what may, we will be at peace. After all, we have fulfilled the commandment, and we will not let anyone find fault with us, not even the One who gave that commandment. He will simply be forced to give the Pharisee the blessings of paradise, because everything has been fulfilled. Thus the Pharisee himself and his experience of his own righteousness stand at the center. The drive toward formal fulfillment of the commandments carries within it a hidden desire to shield all the "rest" of life, the part not reducible to commandments, from the Creator's intervention.

But for the Son of God, the living person stands at the center: the one who suffers and is in need. Formally the commandment may even be violated, but at the same time God's love and God's mercy enter the world and act within it. Rebuking the Pharisees, the Lord Jesus says that goodness and the salvation of the soul must be the true value: "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?" When we need to make decisions of this kind, it is important to remember the simple and practical criterion Christ Himself gives us here.

The Sabbath, Shabbat in Judaism, is the foundation of foundations. Without observance of Shabbat there is no Judaism; this is clear to every observant Jew, and Gospel times differ from ours in this respect not at all. But what does it mean to observe Shabbat? For the religious consciousness it means above all observing the corresponding ritual prohibitions. Already in those days there were practically as many such prohibitions as there are today, so many that a person, unless he was born and raised in an Orthodox Jewish environment, usually found it completely impossible to observe them all: he would inevitably forget something, make a mistake somewhere, and do something forbidden.

The Pharisees, being deeply and in their own way sincerely religious people, were precisely the ones who watched to make sure the prohibitions were not violated. Plucking ears of grain is also work, and like any work it is forbidden on Shabbat, which means that Jesus' disciples violated Shabbat.

The Pharisees point out this violation to the Teacher. They think that He is simply instructing His disciples poorly, that He is not teaching them to observe Shabbat as they should, and therefore He is the first one to be held accountable. But Jesus answers them in a completely unexpected way, recalling the well-known story described in the Book of Kingdoms, when the high priest gave the bread of the Presence to David, who was hiding from Saul, food reserved exclusively for priests. By doing this he appeared to violate the Torah, which forbids anyone except priests to eat the bread of the Presence. And the prohibition here is direct; this is not a list of Shabbat ritual prohibitions compiled by commentators.

There are, however, situations in which even what is usually forbidden may be done. Shabbat cannot and must not turn into an end in itself; it is only a means, as is the whole cult and the whole ritual. Once this is forgotten and they are made the goal, religious ritualism and legalism take the place of spiritual life and communion with God, and they kill that life. These are simple things, but they have to be remembered, above all by people who are deeply and, in their own way, sincerely religious.

Today's reading is a short but rich description of Jesus' preaching in His native Galilee, where He, as is clear, often preached not only in houses and synagogues, but also in the open air (v. 13; by "sea" here is meant not the Mediterranean Sea, but Lake Gennesaret). People whose reputation in the society of believers was not very good often found themselves in the same house with Him and at the same table (v. 15).

In the Gospels, "tax collectors" are collectors of taxes and tribute, like Levi son of Alphaeus, who is mentioned in the passage (v. 14). In Jewish society they were considered traitors, because they collected taxes for the treasury of the Roman Empire, under whose power Palestine was at that time, and many regarded them as accomplices of the occupying authorities. It is no wonder that such respected people among believers as the scribes and Pharisees did not care for this kind of company (v. 16).

In the Gospels, "Pharisees" are members of special religious brotherhoods that existed at that time around the synagogues. They were the most active part of the Synagogue; the Pharisees devoted much time to preaching, not only among Jews but often among Gentiles, to charity, and to religious education. With good reason they considered themselves the core of the synagogue community, and being near people who, from this point of view, had no standing, people known for an obviously unrighteous way of life, of course had to offend them. Besides, they did not consider such people worthy of fellowship with a Teacher like Jesus, and they considered it shameful for Him to sit at one table with them.

As for Jesus Himself, on the contrary, He considers such people worthy not of rejection, but of help: each of them can repent of his sins and turn to God (v. 17). And He does not treat religious life as formally as many religious people did at that time. For Him both fasting and the Sabbath are not ends in themselves, but means for establishing a relationship with God, so necessary for the human person, who always remains the main goal (vv. 27-28). Such a position, of course, inevitably had to lead to conflict with religious formalists, for whom any departures from established norms and rules are unacceptable by definition. So the image of new wine poured into an old wineskin, or skins (v. 22), could hardly have produced anything in them except irritation.

In today's passage, three episodes can be distinguished: the calling of Levi son of Alphaeus, the conversation with the disciples of the Pharisees and of John the Baptist about fasting, and the conversation with the Pharisees about keeping the Sabbath. In all three episodes, the growing conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees is shown. The Pharisees cannot accept the newness in relations with God and with people that Christ offers them. In their view, the main thing is the letter of the law. They condemn Jesus because He associates with tax collectors, who collected taxes for Rome. Such people were considered traitors and great sinners. For a pious person, it was considered unacceptable to sit at the same table with them. But for Christ something else proves important: the thirst for salvation that makes many tax collectors and sinners follow Him. Levi leaves his profitable place and immediately follows Jesus.

Jesus' attitude toward fasting is also incomprehensible to the Pharisees. Fasting is an ascetic means to which ascetics have resorted since ancient times in the hope of drawing near to God. But Christ's disciples cannot fast, because the One toward whom they strive is already with them. The time for fasting will come when Christ is no longer nearby. Christ compares the Pharisees' lack of understanding to the way old cloth cannot be mended with a patch of new cloth, and old, fragile wineskins cannot hold new wine. In order to receive the new relationships that Jesus offers, people themselves must be renewed.

Thus Christ places the Old Testament law about the Sabbath not above the human being, but at the service of the human being. For God, the human being is more important. The Sabbath has no value in itself, but was established for the human being. Christ, God become man, the "Lord of the Sabbath," affirms the primacy of the human being over the letter of the law, replacing it with relationships of love and faith.